{"id":853028,"date":"2026-08-12T21:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853028\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T21:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:42:18","slug":"cuban-woman-unlawfully-gained-u-s-citizenship-while-hiding-role-in-4-6-million-healthcare-fraud-doj-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853028\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuban woman unlawfully gained U.S. citizenship while hiding role in $4.6 million healthcare fraud, DOJ says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal jury has convicted a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/cuba\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cuban<\/a>\u00a0woman of fraudulently obtaining her\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/immigration\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">U.S. citizenship<\/a> by hiding her role in a multimillion-dollar healthcare fraud scheme during the naturalization process, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Tania Rosa Rodriguez, 57, applied for naturalization in 2017 and was granted citizenship in 2018. On her application, she stated she had never committed a crime for which she had not been arrested. That was not true, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdfl\/pr\/cuban-national-convicted-unlawfully-obtaining-us-citizenship-after-concealing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">according to the DOJ<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez was already participating in a healthcare fraud conspiracy at the time she applied, court records cited by federal prosecutors showed. The scheme lasted seven years and resulted in approximately $4.6 million in fraudulent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/health-care\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">healthcare<\/a> claims, the DOJ said.<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez was previously convicted in federal court for her role in that conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>The jury found her guilty of one count of unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization. She faces up to 10 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;American citizenship cannot be lawfully obtained through fraud and concealment,&#8221; U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Qui\u00f1ones for the Southern District of Florida said. &#8220;While participating in a multimillion-dollar healthcare fraud conspiracy, this defendant sought U.S. citizenship and concealed her criminal conduct from the government. A federal jury has now held her accountable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Homeland Security Investigations Miami is handling the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecution is being handled by the Border and Immigration Crimes Enforcement Section, a unit created by Reding Qui\u00f1ones in November 2025 to focus on immigration fraud, border security and related federal crimes in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/south-florida\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">South Florida<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A federal judge will determine Rodriguez&#8217;s sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No sentencing date was announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal jury has convicted a Cuban\u00a0woman of fraudulently obtaining her\u00a0U.S. citizenship by hiding her role in a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,48,13226,354,137,500,9281,5140,138575,22584,248075],"class_list":["post-853028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crime","tag-cuba","tag-fraud","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-immigration","tag-miami","tag-miami-dade","tag-south-florida","tag-united-states-department-of-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}